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Exactly what I just said, and also why the F2P bubble will eventually burst, relegating the microtransaction model to its appropriate niche, and subscription-based services will return.

This has already happened in digital music and video. Services like Spotify and Pandora are doing very well, offering unlimited music from their vast databases for a monthly fee. Nobody here needs to be told how successful Netflix is--even within our anime niche, Crunchyroll exists off monthly subscriptions.

Gaming will return to the proper path after the bubble bursts. Unlimited consumption for a small fee is certainly superior to having to buy everything piecemeal. I suspect we'll start seeing more "freemium" models in the near future as the woefully-misleading "completely free-to-play" movement dies out.

Gaming will return to the proper path after the bubble bursts. Unlimited consumption for a small fee is certainly superior to having to buy everything piecemeal. I suspect we'll start seeing more "freemium" models in the near future as the woefully-misleading "completely free-to-play" movement dies out.

That would be nice. Sadly, nowadays the trend seems to slap the "Free to Play!" tag on everything and, more often than not, the product quality suffers from that point on.
Do you get more players? Sure. But those same players grow complacent about slow content updates and bugfixes because "it's free, what did you expect?". Does a great job on revitalizing a game short-term.. but doesn't work too great long-term (there are exceptions, of course).

I'd rather play a "freemium" model (in fact, I played SWTOR for a while) than a pay2win model.
One does its purpose, which is to introduce you to the game and its features. If you like the game and want more.. you pay for it when you feel like doing so. If you want ALL of it, you subscribe. If you're fine with the basic stuff, then just keep on playin'.
The Pay2Win model is a cancer, where a company only wants to make money out of the folks desperate enough to shell out cash for in-game advantages that others wouldn't normally be able to access...until it becomes the norm that, in order to succeed, you need to spend at least X on the cash shop (Lookin' at you, PWI).

So yeah, I'd love to see more quality products using the freemium model and less crappy ones with the "FREE TO PLAY!!!1oneone!!omgz" tag all over them when all they're good for is being a cash cow.

World of Warcraft is the only MMORPG that is allowed to have a subscription based billing

And they can only do so because

1) they have your lv 80 characters, which you have put way too much hours into, as hostage
2) they have a freaking large online community.

Otherwise, subscription based MMORPG needs to die. period.

is F2p the answer? In theory, yes. But in a practice it can easily abused. This is where Pay To Win and Pay To Have Fun models come from

But I think F2p does more good than harm.

if everything is free eventually people will flock towards the best ones of their respective genre.
And even if in the very unlikely situation that all games are equal in quality, people will still be forced to choose, because you can only play so many MMORPGs at a time.

Look, I hate F2P models. I hate item malls. I hate P2W. I hate not being able to pay a flat fee and know I'm getting the whole goddamned game.

I'm absolutely furious that if I want a subscription game I'm limited to RIFT, WoW, EVE or FFXI. Those are the only four left. FFXIV A Realm Reborn is supposed to have a subscription model, and so is Elder Scrolls Online, but I wonder how long they'll last that way, how long it'll take them to eventually contract the F2P disease.

The options available for subscription-based MMOs are drastically decreasing. Used to be every MMO was subscription-based. For a while there was a good mix of both subscription and F2P titles.

Now F2P is just taking over, and I don't want to keep playing MMOs in this environment. The only reason I continue to play TERA, after it had gone free to play, is because I have friends there who don't want to go anywhere else. I'm trying to get them to play FFXIV when it re-launches, but it's not all that effective.

If this trend continues, I'm just going to bow out of the MMO market entirely. This is absurd. I'm willing to pay for what I want--$15, $30, even $45 a month!

Yes, that's what I said.

I'd happily pay FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS A MONTH if it'd get me:

- Middle- and end-game content expansions every two months.
- Expansion packs every year.
- Excellent, polite, helpful, 24/7 live customer support chat and rapid support ticket turnaround.
- Minimal grind, minimal repetition middle- and end-game.
- Loads of fluff content--both lore-based and holiday events, complete with cosmetics and associated activities.
- Customizable player and guild housing.
- Gear-less PvP built entirely around skill, rather than who can grind the most gear or buy the most from the item mall.
- A well-optimized graphics engine with impressive visuals and the ability to render hundreds of character polymodels without any appreciable slowdown on modern PCs.
- Challenging content for all levels, including selectable instance difficulty.
- Balanced virtual economy with active currency sinks (i.e. NPC vendor prices change based on total amount of currency possessed by all players on a server).
- Deep, varied and engaging item creation and crafting.
- Multiple server types: PvE, PvP, RP-PvE, RP-PvP.
- Strict enforcement of rules on both the forums and in-game; force name changes for inappropriate character/guild names, especially on roleplaying servers. Chatban individuals who spam public channels with nonsense. Quickly working to thwart RMT and hacking/botting activity.

And perhaps most of all...

NO ITEM MALL!

Not a single thing for sale with real money except the retail box/digital download, collector's edition and upgrade and game time cards. SELL NOTHING ELSE. No cosmetics, no power, no convenience, NOTHING. You pay the subscription, you get the whole game. Not part of the game. Not a crippled version that's essentially a glorified demo.

Give me this, MMO industry, and I will THROW MONEY AT YOU. As much as three times what the traditional subscription fee costs! I don't care! F2P is the disease, and this would be the cure!

World of Warcraft is the only MMORPG that is allowed to have a subscription based billing

not sure if serious.

Quote:

Otherwise, subscription based MMORPG needs to die. period.

I'll just take your idea, stuff it in the next SpaceX falcon rocket, and shoot it into the sun, where it belongs.

Quote:

is F2p the answer? In theory, yes. But in a practice it can easily abused. This is where Pay To Win and Pay To Have Fun models come from

But I think F2p does more good than harm.

if everything is free eventually people will flock towards the best ones of their respective genre.
And even if in the very unlikely situation that all games are equal in quality, people will still be forced to choose, because you can only play so many MMORPGs at a time.

You're not even making sense here. MMO isn't a necessity that people must have, and people already flock to what they feel is "best" use of their money/time, F2P will never change that.

If everything went F2P/MT based, many will simply give the studios the middle finger and leave.

Give me this, MMO industry, and I will THROW MONEY AT YOU. As much as three times what the traditional subscription fee costs! I don't care! F2P is the disease, and this would be the cure!

Yep, you want that stuff and you will throw money at them .. but unfortunately the way the market is going and the whole move to F2P .. is the world saying they don't agree with you. Or, they don't have money. Or they don't like subscription based services. Even WoW is starting to have their subscriber-base start to get hammered ..

Yep, you want that stuff and you will throw money at them .. but unfortunately the way the market is going and the whole move to F2P .. is the world saying they don't agree with you. Or, they don't have money. Or they don't like subscription based services. Even WoW is starting to have their subscriber-base start to get hammered ..

/shrug. WoW, for what it's worth, is rather long in the tooth, and faces a rather unique set of challenges that no one else have. Still, there are enough supporters for subscription gaming there for some MMOs to thrive, and many are rather.. tenacious. When CCP added clothing cash shops to Eve and hinted at potential future shift towards MT among other things, there was such an uproar(and canceling of accounts) that CCP had to do an about-face, (unfortunately) lay off 1/5 of their workforce, and rethink their attitude towards future development of Eve.

Since then, Eve has see more content updates and fixes in the last year than there has been for years, and subscriber count has now reached 500,000 for the first time, I'd say it worked out pretty well in the end.

It's a shame EVE is really not my cup of tea. Actually, none of the existing subscription-based games are. I'm not overly thrilled with FFXI's changes brought about by the Abyssea and Magian updates, and I played WoW for years and it just doesn't draw me in. RIFT is just too similar to WoW.

Right now there's one single shining bright spot on the horizon, and that's FFXIV A Realm Reborn. I'd be more interested in Elder Scrolls Online if the character design aesthetics weren't typical Bethesda horrible. The way my characters look is pretty important to me.

/shrug. WoW, for what it's worth, is rather long in the tooth, and faces a rather unique set of challenges that no one else have. Still, there are enough supporters for subscription gaming there for some MMOs to thrive, and many are rather.. tenacious. When CCP added clothing cash shops to Eve and hinted at potential future shift towards MT among other things, there was such an uproar(and canceling of accounts) that CCP had to do an about-face, (unfortunately) lay off 1/5 of their workforce, and rethink their attitude towards future development of Eve.

Since then, Eve has see more content updates and fixes in the last year than there has been for years, and subscriber count has now reached 500,000 for the first time, I'd say it worked out pretty well in the end.

I wonder when "pay to win" changed meanings. Look, it doesn't matter--if they sell power from the item mall, it's pay to win, even if those same items are available from grinding until you look like Gandalf.

I'd be more interested in Elder Scrolls Online if the character design aesthetics weren't typical Bethesda horrible. The way my characters look is pretty important to me.

If I recall, the designs weren't by Beth but by Zenimax. Some feel that ESO should be as eye-pleasing as Skyrim.

On my two cents about this matter: in my country, traditional subscription-based and F2P systems are in use, especially in the case of Ragnarok Online and RF Online, both operated by Level-Up; the former is for those who want the classic feel and without the whiny kiddies ruining the game, the latter is best suited for those who like to play for free but have to pay for certain items.

By my experience, however, F2P seems to favor those who have the money to get to the top, and sometimes being exploited for RMT, anywhere from high-level in-game weapons and armor, to gold in exchange for game credits. Furthermore, with an MMO advertised as F2P, expect a low-quality community full of angry, greedy kids that's been spoiled too much. (I finally got burned out at level 175 in a Korean-made F2P, because by that point neither I have the time nor the money to go any further; currently as you know I'm playing Skyrim without the emotional baggage associated with MMOs.)

It's a shame EVE is really not my cup of tea. Actually, none of the existing subscription-based games are. I'm not overly thrilled with FFXI's changes brought about by the Abyssea and Magian updates, and I played WoW for years and it just doesn't draw me in. RIFT is just too similar to WoW.

Right now there's one single shining bright spot on the horizon, and that's FFXIV A Realm Reborn. I'd be more interested in Elder Scrolls Online if the character design aesthetics weren't typical Bethesda horrible. The way my characters look is pretty important to me.

Eve is a very niche game, ARR does look promising though, for the most part I like what I've seen so far in the beta.

It's not exactly "pay to win" because you don't have to .. but paying real money helps you avoid the "grind" .. which is the case in most F2P games as well.

Not sure how that's relevant. Aurum in Eve is a joke, and the only purpose for them is literally completely irrelevant character avatar clothing items in the cash shop, a shop that for all intents and purposes is (along with the character avatar side of the game) dead in the water after the Monocle-Gate debacle over a year ago. They have no function in the game other than change your character portrait, and what your avatar is wearing in the captains quarter, which consists of 4 giant walk-in space closets that only you can see and serves no useful purpose in the game.

A better case can be made against PLEX, however:

- Character wise there is no "grind" in Eve, your character gains skill points at a set rate regardless if you're logged in/playing or not. In-game wallet wise a PLEX can certainly help with that, but I'd say it's more along the line of an officialy-sanctioned RMT than anything else, as the only thing CCP is selling is game time, and whatever proceed the buyer may (or may not ) get when he resell the PLEX is not generated out of thin-air by CCP, but rather already acquired by another player.

I don't have a problem with PLEX, or what TERA did before it went F2P with chronoscrolls. I think those kinds of things are very good anti-RMT measures.

En Masse did it right by allowing people to only buy two chronoscrolls per month, so even if someone did buy a few, they wouldn't get enough gold out of it to really cause a problem.

@sa547: I don't doubt that the scenery and environment in ESO is absolutely gorgeous. The gameplay footage I've seen bears this out--it looks fantastic. But the player models are very boring, drab, brown and gray and all look very much the same.

One thing that I really, really love about Korean MMOs--and this is probably one of the only things I love about them--is just how bright, vibrant and colorful everything usually is. I'm really tired of "realism is brown" as a gaming trope. I loved the colors and vibrance of Aion, and I feel the same way about TERA.

I guess it all comes down to consumers who want to feel powerful without having to put in the game time to get there is what's driving the micro transaction model. I made over 1000 dollars from D3 just selling junk here and there. When you sell gold in D3, it gets sold within seconds back when I was playing.

To me it depends.
If we're talking about kids who have all the time in the world and still borrow mommy's credit card to take the easy way into power, then yeah, awful people.
On the other hand, if we're talking about folks with busy lives (studies and/or work) who use microtransactions to make up for the lost time...I'm not really sure I can hold anything against them.

Assuming, of course, we're dealing with a "fair" cash shop that doesn't offer overpowered stuff compared to what you can normally find in-game. If not, then they're all awful

- Character wise there is no "grind" in Eve, your character gains skill points at a set rate regardless if you're logged in/playing or not. In-game wallet wise a PLEX can certainly help with that, but I'd say it's more along the line of an officialy-sanctioned RMT than anything else, as the only thing CCP is selling is game time, and whatever proceed the buyer may (or may not ) get when he resell the PLEX is not generated out of thin-air by CCP, but rather already acquired by another player.

PLEX is still "pay to get the super nice starship faster" .. so you may not be paying the "company" to "win/advance" but you're spending real life money to speed up the process. That's why the definition of "pay to win" as Syn put it is so fluid. Does anyone remember "Gunbound" ? It was like worms. You could play in a server, casual game mode, where no items of any kind, bought through real money or in-game money affected stats. It was purely skill based. There's other modes where those items affect your stats though. So that's F2P + MT + "psuedo-p2w" ..

Ironically, Free to Play was a Genre I didn't pay attention to, until back at 2011 when it was starting to become more popular and more developers started to turn to the F2P model. First there was Blacklight Retribution, then Tribes Ascend, then Hawken,Team Fortress 2, Arctic Combat, Path of Exile, and others. Even Splash Damage has recently turned to the F2P market with their upcoming title "Dirty Bomb". And there are a few people that I know online that play F2P games exclusively and refuse to buy retail games (unless they got them for free by legal means such as through contests or promotional deals).

With the recent surge of F2P games, people have said that they are the future of PC gaming. I....have mixed feelings about this. On one hand it is interesting to see how the market is adapting and I do like how developers are trying to cut down on piracy while trying to make a profit. On the other hand, most F2P titles are Multiplayer only games. I'm mainly into Single Player driven games. I'm not into Multiplayer mainly because......well, I'll put it as simply as daylight. I SUCK! I suck real bad at multiplayer games and no matter how much I practice, I am never good at them. I've also had bad experiences with jerks and jackasses online when I use to play Call of Duty or F.E.A.R. through online matches and deathmatch. If the PC market does shift to F2P entirely in the future, I hope they make Singleplayer games work with F2P titles (or at least support offline bots).